Disappointed Chase Elliott comes up just short in NASCAR Pure Michigan 400

Hendrick Motorsports driver finishes second in both Michigan races this season

August 28, 2016

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Chase Elliott came up just short once again in trying to bring the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to victory at Michigan International Speedway.

Elliott finished second at MIS in June and did it again on Sunday in similar fashion. In June, Joey Logano pulled away from Elliott on a late restart, and this time it was Kyle Larson who accomplished the pullaway on a restart with nine laps to go.

Elliott led from laps 169 through 190 and looked poised to grab his first career win before a late caution for debris changed his fate.

“Chase was going to win had that last caution not come out,” Larson said.

Larson grabbed the lead off of turn 2 on that restart and went on to beat the 20-year-old Elliott to the finish line by 1.478 seconds. Larson left Michigan with his first win in 99 career Cup races and a spot in the NASCAR Chase, while Elliott left the speedway 11th in the points and with a precarious hold on an at-large Chase bid.

Larson was the 13th different winner this season with just two races remaining in the regular season -- Darlington and Richmond. Elliott is the top driver In points among non-winners and would be first in line for an at-large spot needed to fill the 16-driver field.

“You can go practice (restarts) if you want to rent a racetrack, sit there and restart all day long if you wanted to, I guess,” said Elliott, who has made just 29 career starts in NASCAR's top series. “But you’re not going to re-create those scenarios, what the people around you are thinking when one of these Cup races are on the line.

“That’s just part of life, man. You do have to put yourself in those situations more often to see how you’re going to handle them and how you can fix them going forward. There’s no guarantees in life. There’s certainly no guarantees in racing. Have to recognize that, and hit it head on.”

For anyone who watched Elliott’s father dominate at MIS in the 1980s, Sunday’s race stirred up more than a few memories of Awesome Bill from Dawsonville, Georgia.

Elliott’s dad, a NASCAR Hall of Famer, dominated MIS like few others. Bill won here seven times, second to only David Pearson (9) and Cale Yarborough (8). Bill leads all NASCAR Cup drivers in miles completed at the track (22,424), starts (61), and he is the only driver to win four consecutive Cup races at MIS when he swept both races in 1985 and 1986 for car owner the late Harry Melling.

“We’ve talked about it in the past a little bit,” Chase said of his dad’s success on the 2-mile oval in Brooklyn, Michigan. “He definitely had a lot of success here. They were on their game many a day here.”

Meanwhile, Chase Elliott plans to just keep his head down and keep grinding, knowing that there are plenty of his own good days ahead -- days his father will be talking about.

“For me, I just have to try to take the positives out of it, recognize an issue when you see one," Elliott said. "There’s only one way to fix it, and that’s to hit it head on.”

Mike Pryson
- Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and M-Live Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek as online motorsports editor In 2012. Promoted to motorsports editor in 2015.
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